Simultaneously Solving for Security and Costs: A By-Mail Federal Ballot
Gregory Miller JD, Chief Operating Officer
Summary
Elections are the principal mechanism of representative government and remain the most powerful method of democratic participation in the U.S. today. However, voter confidence in the system is waning, while the costs to secure an inherently vulnerable election infrastructure have become a difficult issue of runaway federal funding.
Threats of foreign-sponsored compromise of election data or election results are now at the forefront of the conversation on election security. Since the successful Russian-sponsored 2016 operations to infiltrate election administration systems across the country, now fortified by Iranian, Chinese, and even North Korean contributors, there is a crisis of confidence in elections and their outcomes.
While there is bipartisan acknowledgement of the need to secure the U.S. sovereign act of free and fair elections as a matter of national security in defense of democracy, endless debate over proper funding for election security continues. And the status of the vast majority of America’s election systems mean that security has been reduced to addressing hardware spare parts from an insecure supply chain, burdened by a software protection tactic of “patch and pray.” Something must be done.
The problem statement is straight-forward: “How can we simultaneously increase the level of election security and decrease the cost of doing so?”
The OSET Institute examines this as a classic engineering problem; to solve for both issues by examining all possible solutions—and not letting the obvious or simple escape us. The Institute continues its work on designing and developing more verifiable, accurate, secure, and transparent election technology. However, while new technology is required, we do not want to overlook obvious solutions that also advance the cause of more secure, lower cost election administration.
A possible solution to both the security issues plaguing current election systems and the runaway costs of securing elections, could come in the form of the first major process change since the (unfortunate) introduction of the touchscreen voting device. Such a major innovation in nearly two decades could be a separate Vote-by-Mail ballot for federal elections, administered by the states, with a centralized ballot count in each state.
Accordingly, this paper explores the key issues and opportunities of an all-mail federal ballot, including constitutional and legal questions, security approaches, and a cost model, which projects over a billion dollars in savings for security. The goal of this paper is to catalyze a serious conversation about how to simultaneously solve for lower election security costs and higher security—with a Vote-by-Mail federal ballot as a solution proposal.
This research paper is offered by our Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer, Gregory Miller whose 13+ years experience in researching and developing new election technology architectures and standards, and 27 years of technology sector experience, including work as an engineer, product manager, venture investment advisor, and technology and public policy lawyer provide a solid foundation for its development.
We want to especially recognize the extensive research work and initial drafting assistance provided by Dennis Mema, an OSET Institute Technology Policy Analyst. The author also deeply appreciates the assistance of John Sebes, OSET Institute Co-Founder and CTO in wrangling out a financial model of alternative security strategies.
Finally, we re-emphasize that the OSET Institute is not advocating or endorsing the Federal Ballot concept, but serving it up as a catalyst for serious policy conversation about its potential, for which a defensible case can be made from this paper; all 51 pages, 99 footnotes, and 78 references.
Editor’s Note: This paper was originally finished and ready for publication in late January; Super Tuesday was the target release date. Then the COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed the nation. COVID will be here for a while, and it is sure to impact the November election. So there is no better or worse time than now to publish this paper. Nothing in this essay is actionable for the 2020 election, but the likely required expansion of Vote-By-Mail for November emphasize the relevance of this paper. To be clear, the author was not motivated by COVID-19 (this paper was been in development for over a year). In fact, this paper was catalyzed by a classical engineering problem raised in the summer of 2018 that essentially amounts to finding a way to increase election security while simultaneously lowering runaway costs of the same. Sometimes the best digital innovation is a reapplication of existing technology. Thus, this essay.
